Slow Fibre - is it worth a second engineer visit?

Background:

I signed up to PlusNet Fibre on the 80/20 package. Initially I could only connect at about 40/9 which seemed very slow. So I raised a fault and they arranged for a BT engineer to visit. He installed a new master socket and made some changes including connecting me to a new socket in the fibre cabinet. After this my speed is now 49/18. So improved a fair bit but still slower than the original estimate for the line of between 60-80. PlusNet tell me the minimum speed that OFCOM allow is 53mbit so I can ask them to get BT to investigate further.

Question:

Is it worth getting PlusNet to ask BT to send another engineer to visit? Is it likely they will be able to do anything further? Or am I wasting my time in pursuing anything further? I've got a couple of weeks to give an answer and I was planning on leaving it a bit as I'm going on holiday for a week anyway.

I'd appreciate advice, especially from anyone that might have been in the same situation before.

Thanks in advance!

Tim

"PlusNet tell me the minimum speed that OFCOM allow is 53mbit " strange phrase to come from PlusNet, as Ofcom set no minimum speed on VDSL2

Ideally would need to know the postcode (you can private message it) to look and see if 80/20 was a realistic estimate or not. Another option is to post the VDSL2 stats i.e. connection speed, attenuation and noise margins from the VDSL2 modem/router.

What actual estimate was given when you signed up? This is different to the package speeds which are up to 38 Mbps and up to 76 Mbps at PlusNet currently.

I can only repeat what PlusNet told me, they said OFCOM 53mbit minimum speed, but not sure where they got it from!

Original speed estimate is as per below from my PlusNet account data:

Estimated line speed:79Mb (This may vary between 61.7Mb and 79.7Mb) - Checked on 2016-08-05 14:41:14

I can check the VDSL2 stats tonight when I am back at home. In the meantime I will send the post code via private message thanks MrSaffron!

Regards

Tim

Can see varying estimates for premises in your postcode

35 to 79
25 to 63
27 to 67
30 to 75
20 to 54
This is impacted low figure to clean high figure, it may be that PlusNet just used the clean range which is generally higher.

All in your small road, and based on where the cabinet is and your postcode location those ranges seem sensible, and thus given the work to improve things probably resolved the internal wiring/socket issues another visit is unlikely to do much more.

One speed test in your road, but looks slow due to wifi (on an ipad) and around same distance on same cabinet there is http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/results.html... which looks like user on the 38/9.5 capped product.

Thanks very much for the prompt reply. I thought PlusNet might have used the higher estimates.

When I spoke to the BT engineer he mentioned that there could be some copper coated aluminium cables which would cause speed issues. Not certain if this was a guess or an observation. If this is the case and is the cause of the low speeds I am guessing that the likelihood of BT actually replacing such cables is pretty low?

To be honest I'm not too unhappy with my speed now and I completely appreciate there are technical limits. But I don't want to suffer from slower speeds than could be achieved if there are any quick wins or any further work BT would do (at their cost).

Thanks

Tim

You are doing better than the 38 Mbps we'd estimate independent of Openreach, so I don't think aluminium cable in the street is your issue, just a reality when 350m away from the cabinet.

Some do get higher than you at this distance, but some don't and do get less.